Last weekend's overcast skies broke Sunday night and the week turned out really beautiful. I heard a news report Wednesday that with the rains over the weekend all of the state of Texas was no longer in extreme drought. Yay! However, the soil is still very dry. Well, you know what the this guy says. Early Friday morning more rain rolled in and stayed with us all day. Here's our balcony taking a beating. Saturday Morning. Blue skies are here again Barton Creek overflowing into Barton Springs pool Barton Springs Pool had just reopened Thursday after the rain last weekend. For reference, this is what Barton Springs Pool usually looks like. Usual Today

"Who needs Six Flags? This is freaking scary and this is real," says Jean as we speed under an overpass. It's dark, we're not quite sure where we're going, the wind screen wipers working at full tilt against an unyielding barrage of rain, and cars are whipping around us like a swarm of hornets.  Perhaps Jean isn't just commenting on my driving. Jean and I were going to Dallas this weekend for my cousin Cathy's wedding. We also have several friends and family members living in the Dallas-Fort Worth area so we're also taking the opportunity to meet up with some of them. We set off from Austin Friday afternoon at half past two with the intention of arriving in Dallas around six, checking in at our hotel and meeting some friends for dinner at seven. Heavy rains turned our three hour trip into a six hour one. We still made dinner albeit very late. The rain cleared Saturday morning and the weather remained merely overcast for the rest of the weekend. F

Final day. We've made it relatively unscathed thus far. There have been a few small set backs though: Aaron: Leaky sleeping pad and banged up shin scored whilst scouting out campsites Jeff: Lost knife Bryan: Lost fishing pole and weird rash brought on by cold temperatures Steve: Fruit & Nut Medley overdose Jeremy: Contusions received during cliff jumping at Dolan Falls Jerry: Medical issue that I won't explain here but Jerry would happy to discuss if you asked him All: Beef jerky overindulgence Not half bad. The outfitter is meeting us at the take out point at 10 am so we got an early start. Steve swore off his Fruit & Nut medley in expectation of cheeseburger for lunch. Take out point reached A little sore and quite a bit dirtier than we were a few days ago but we made it. Loading up our stuff Victory lunch at Lumz Bar B Que in Junction

So our campsite scored a "C" for privacy, an "B+" for flatness, an "A" for white noise and most importantly an "A" for legality. A helicopter flew over pretty low last night but thankfully no game wardens met us for breakfast. We think we made eight or nine miles yesterday so we're going to take it easier today. As clear and pristine as the water was it was really difficult not to swim. We finally made it to this low water crossing, one of the few distinctive land marks on the map. It took us longer to get here than we expected which means we probably didn't cover as much river yesterday as we thought. Oh well, plenty of day ahead. For most of the morning we had a current pushing along. Here the river ran deep and wide a bit of a headwind sprung up. The contrast between the riparian area immediately around the river and the desert beyond was pretty amazing. Jerry shooting a rapid We ran ag

On day 2 we started out at Finegan Springs between mile marker 14 and 15 (See map below). The plan was to get a seven or eight mile float in before setting up camping. Striking camp at Finegan Sprins We passed back by the put in spot and the last facilities we would see for a while. Jeremy and Jeff taking their kayaks for a walk Dolan Falls, a class V rapid (4 for being a torrential ten foot drop and plus one for being really far from medical facilities) Rapid, shmapid says Steve after portaging around and posing for shot in front of the falls. They don't look so tough from here. Portaging around Dolan Falls. Jerry and Bryan jumping off the ledge in front of the falls. Group jump! Jeff preparing to make a hard left Over correcting And dismounting. Good thing the photographers were ready. We encountered several rapids throughout the day. On this (Three-Tier Rapid I think) Steve probably had the be